Medal Building

In 1926, 47 new buildings reached up to Manhattan skies out of the Fifth Avenue district. Nearly all are strident homes of commerce. But the most beautiful is the new Aeolian Hall dedicated to music. So recently decreed the Fifth Avenue Association, wherefore its president, Colonel Michael Friedsam, (also president of B. Altman & Co.) awarded the Aeolian Co. the annual gold medal in token of its building's pre-eminent beauty. Said the Colonel: "This splendid building is a Fifth Avenue-New York message of inspiration and good will to the country. Such structures . . . insure our country the commercial leadership of the world."

This was at the dedication ceremony. Representing the Aeolian Co. Architect Whitney Warren rose from his chair to deliver remarks appropriate. "The soul is not always in haste, the eye does not always seek the restless gesture of the skyscraper, never attaining its sky. A little rest, a little peace, a simplicity complete, a dream symbolized, as Colonel Michael Friedsam has so fittingly said, by the sounds of lute and viol in castle parks--I hope that the Aeolian Building conveys something of this. In its interior it contains all that modern musical demands may require."